Author: D Coyne

The World in 2030- Non-Fossil Fuel Open Thread

D Coyne 325 Comments

This is a non-fossil fuel Open Thread, with a suggested topic of what the World will look like in 2030.

There are many different visions of the future. Some see either slow or fast collapse due to financial crises caused by high debt levels, overpopulation, resource constraints, war, and environmental damage (not a complete list.)

Others see the potential for technological progress in EVs and other transportation, low cost solar and wind energy sources, reduced cost battery storage, low cost sensors, and new business models leading to disruptive changes that may allow us to overcome many resource constraints, reduce environmental damage, and transform society.  In addition, this optimistic view foresees a Worldwide demographic transition with World population peaking in 2050 at 8.2 billion and falling back to 7 billion by 2100 and reaching 2 billion by 2200 as total fertility ratios (TFR) fall to 1.6 births per woman and average life expectancy tops out at 90 years.

Reality may fall somewhere between these sharply contrasting visions of the future, but from my perspective, the future is far from clear.

World Crude plus Condensate Decline Rate

D Coyne 513 Comments

There is concern that World C+C may decline steeply after the peak, I believe those concerns are over blown. There is always the possibility that there could be a severe recession due to high debt levels, high oil prices or potentially due to both problems in combination. War and environmental damage due to overpopulation are also potential problems which may lead to a crisis.

If none of these problems arises in the near term (say for the next ten years), and demand for oil is high enough to keep annual average oil prices above $75/b from 2018 to 2025, then the average annual decline rate of oil (C+C) output will remain under 2%.

For simplicity in the analysis that follows, I assume the peak in C+C output is 2015 and that output will decline at a relatively steady rate from 2015 to 2025. This in unlikely to be the case in practice and the actual path of future world output is unknown, the intention is to determine a likely trend line for World C+C output.  Using quarterly C+C output data from the EIA, I constructed the charts that follow.

Data is from the International Energy Statistics page at the EIA website.

The “Big 14” oil producers from 2002 to 2015 are (in order from largest to smallest): Russia, Saudi Arabia, United States, China, Iran, Mexico, Canada, UAE, Venezuela, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria, Norway, and Brazil. The Rest of the World (ROW) is all other oil producers besides the “Big 14”.
All charts below (except the natural log charts) are in kb/d.

declinepost/

Read More

Open Thread- Petroleum (Oil and Natural Gas)

D Coyne 353 Comments

I don’t have anything ready to post and have noticed the conversation has wandered far from Oil and Natural Gas in the previous thread. Please post comments on non-Petroleum topics in this thread. Petroleum (Oil and Natural Gas) topics should go in the Open Thread- Petroleum post.

It is too much work to move comments from one thread to the other so I may delete posts that are in the wrong thread.

It will help if you don’t respond to posts that are in the wrong thread, even simple stuff like “Wrong thread” will not allow me to delete the comment without messing up the conversation.

We will see how this works.

So two threads, Petroleum and non-Petroleum, when in doubt use the non-Petroleum thread. By Petroleum, I mean Oil and Natural Gas.